Page 39 of Tiger Born

“When you became his Rabbit,” Dame uttered softly.

“Why do you keep calling me that?” she asked. “What does it mean?”

Dame inhaled deeply and stood beside her, massaging her hair in the back. “When they race dogs, they use a rabbit. The dogs have an instinct to follow it. In the old days, they used a real rabbit to run in front of them and motivate them to top out their speed. Now they use a fake rabbit on mechanics to push the dogs. They have to chase it. For Cats, sometimes our animals connect to a Rabbit. It becomes an obsession. It’s the ultimate hunt. Most of the time it’s a prey animal, and it’s an easy end. Rarely, it’s another predator, like a rival Cat. Extremely rarely, the animal chooses a human Rabbit.”

“When they’re super fucked up in the head and unsalvageable,” Mars deadpanned as he glared at Stellan.

The devil was in Stellan’s smile. “I could kill you,” he told Mars.

“But you don’t,” Dame said. “You don’t finish the fights with us. Why is that?”

“Because you are both weak. It’s a waste of time. Your death wouldn’t bring me any honor.”

“Nah,” Dame said, squatting down beside Misty’s chair. He cocked his head and studied his caged brother. “I think it’s because you understand that you are in an Ambush with us.”

Stellan narrowed his eyes. “Fuck you and your Ambush. I don’t do that.”

“You care.”

“Fuck you,” he spat out again, and now the mask was slipping. He paced to the back of the cage and crouched there in the shadows, his eyes glowing unnaturally, like an animal in headlights.

“We are an Ambush,” Dame repeated.

A snarl ripped out of Stellan, and he blurred to the cage door and slammed against it with a resounding boom!

Misty startled hard and stood up, then stumbled toward the door.

“Stay here,” Dame told her, his eyes flashing with seriousness.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I want to keep you both,” he said somberly. “And now I have to figure out how to do that.”

“Well, what’s the plan then? Huh?” she asked. “Just make me sit in here with a monster whose sole drive in life is to kill me? To hurt me? To bleed me?”

“Yes. Do stay,” Stellan said.

“What’s your first memory with your favorite family member? Don’t name names, just tell me the first memory of them.”

She shook her head, feeling protective of her Uncle Tim. “Why?”

“What did you want when you were a kid for your birthday that you never got?” Dame asked, accepting her denial.

She swallowed hard and looked from Dame, to Mars, to Stellan, and back to Dame.

“Just talk to me,” Dame murmured.

“Getting to know her won’t change my desire to hunt her,” Stellan said. “I don’t want to hear about her boring life. It’s a waste of my time. Tigers don’t care about the mundane workings of Rabbit life.”

“Still cocky,” Mars muttered.

“I’m a realist.”

“You’re an animal speaking like you know shit about fuck,” Dame barked. “Shut up and listen or I will take that cattle prod and electrocute the shit out of you again until you pass out. And then we will tell her stories to your twitching carcass, and I know you can hear the oath in my voice. Stop. Talking.”

Whoo, Dame could be stern when he wanted to. Misty stared at the ground like she was the one getting in trouble. The dominance was kind of hot.

Stellan snarled up his lip and dragged the cot across the floor, slammed it down, then sat on it, still staring at Misty with bloodlust in his eyes.